Little sister

by Mary Burchell

  Varoni moved impatiently.

  "You exaggerate," she said coldly.

  "No, Nina. You know as well as I do that something of the sort would happen."

  Varoni shrugged and looked slightly sullen.

  "What do you suggest? That I suddenly make a publicity story about having been married to you for years and having a grown-up daughter? An admirable way of keeping up the illusion of youth."

  "You could surely say you married at the age of sixteen or one of the stock stories," Moerling retorted wearily,

  "And how many people would believe me?"

  Another silence answered that more eloquently than words.

  "I don't think we can settle things that way," Alix said at last. "We must go on as we were, unless you send me away altogether, and I should hate that."

  A dark frown from Moerling said how much he would l hate it too.

  "Well then, we leave things exactly as they were?" Moerling inquired rather grimly.

  "Yes," said Varoni in a defiant tone.

  "Yes," said Alix in a placatory tone. And anyone hearing the two would have supposed, of course, that Alix was the one who was in the wrong.

  So the "conspiracy of silence" continued, and everything was supposed to go on much as it had before. But, Alix knew quite well, there was a subtle difference.

  For one thing, Varoni had been quite right — Prescott I did already suspect more than half the truth. She was much too discreet and wary a person to gossip — besides, her own peculiar code of loyalty had been centred round I Varoni and Moerling too long for alteration now — but it i was a constant irritation to Varoni to sense that someone I so near to her guessed much, if not all, the truth.

  Then one day something particularly unfortunate happened.

  The three of them had been lunching together after a rehearsal, and, as it happened, Prescott was with them. They had not gone back to the hotel, but were in a public restaurant. And suddenly, without any warning, Barry came in, with a very charming companion.

  There was nothing at all remarkable or over-devoted about his manner, but the sheer night of him made Alix fed cold and almost faint. She supposed miserably that her cheeks had gone very white, and when he bowed very slightly in their direction, but passed on, an extraordinary silence fell upon the group.

  Alix could think of nothing whatever to say. Varoni looked very slightly sullen, but otherwise composed, while Moerling looked angry out of all proportion to the occasion — a most unusual circumstance with him.

  "Aren't we on Barry Elton's visiting list any longer?" Prescott inquired bluntly.

  "It seems not," Varolii said lightly and indifferently, while Moerling maintained a restless and unhappy silence. Only, when he did finally speak to Varoni, his voice was quite noticeably cold.

  That too was such an unusual thing with him that Alix was not altogether surprised when Prescott mentioned it to her later.

  "Why was Moerling so chilly to Nina over Barry? I've never heard him speak to her like that before."

  "I don't know," Alix lied flatly, because she couldn't possibly think of anything better to say.

  "Has Nina been flirting with Barry?" Prescott spoke half to herself, but Alix replied almost indignantly:

  "No, of course not."

  Prescott looked reflective.

  "Then Moerling's mad with her for nipping your little romance in the bud."

  There was silence.

  "Moerling's very much attached to you, isn't he?" Prescott said curiously.

  "I hope so." With a great effort, Alix spoke coolly. "I like him very much myself."

  Prescott laughed suddenly, with a sort of contemptuous admiration.

  "Forgive my indiscretion — but I never knew another family party that covered its tracks with more persistence," she said. And when Alix went out of the room without even answering that, Prescott's mocking laughter followed her.

  She could understand, Alix thought with rather grim sympathy, just how much Varoni hated that amused penetration of Prescott's, even while it held not the faintest hint of disloyalty.

  For her own part, Alix was not at all sorry when she heard that Prescott was not accompanying them on their holiday.

  "I can just manage anything urgent myself," Nina remarked indolently, "and as for the ordinary fan mail, it can wait or it can be forwarded to you."

  "In fact, Prescott, you can return to the bosom of your family with a clear conscience," Moerling told her with a smile. He always remained on good terms with Prescott,

  even when — very occasionally — her cynical half spiteful shafts were aimed at himself.

  "Have you got a family?" Alix asked in unconcealed surprise.

  "Certainly. Why not?"

  Alix didn't know quite why not, but she had never thought of Prescott with any personal background at all. It was impossible to visualize a Prescott who was in any way different from her present form.

  "She must have been a child and a girl once," thought Alix, "but I really can't imagine it."

  However, Prescott stated baldly at that moment:

  "I usually go to stay with my married sister. I don't think she likes it any better than I do — but there it is."

  Alix thought it sounded a dispiriting sort of holiday, but she was not at all sure that her sympathy was not with the married sister.

  As for her own holiday, Alix was thrilled by the idea of going abroad for the first time, but it made her heart ache a little to think that she was leaving the country where Barry was.

  That was just stupid, of course, because it didn't really matter how many miles of actual distance stretched between them. In all that mattered, they were already as far apart as if they lived in two different worlds. And at times, Alix managed almost to convince herself that she was putting Barry out of her thoughts altogether, and concentrating on more attainable things.

  They went to one of the lesser known spots on the Riviera, where the fact that the name was not a household word did nothing to reduce the exclusive appeal of the place. It was not crowded, but it was distinctly fashionable — and it was decidedly not a place for informality.

  Alix hoped she was not difficult to please, but the idea did cross her mind sometimes that if you had taken the Gloria and set it down on the French coast, the result would have been very much the same. As for their being private and out of the limelight — there was simply no question of that Varoni and Moerling might not be so well known here as they were in London, but they certainly had very little privacy.

  However, Varoni seemed very well satisfied. Alix sup-

  posed she would have hated a place where people didn't glance at her, first for her beauty and secondly because they recognized her. She did not have to sing, and so she imagined she was having a holiday, and the rather artificial round of pleasures apparently satisfied her.

  It was when they were out on one of their motoring expeditions that Moerling said abruptly:

  "Alix, do you think Nina is very happy these days?"

  "I — don't know. I hadn't thought of her being anything else," Alix replied after a moment.

  "Happy" was not a word one would ever have applied instinctively to Nina, she supposed. She often gave an impression of satisfied ambition, of triumph, of excited pleasure. But happiness was rather a different thing, of course.

  "I think she likes being here, don't you?" Alix said anxiously at last. "After all, it was what she wanted."

  Moerling smiled slightly, though the worried look had not left his eyes.

  "I suppose even Nina sometimes gets what she wants and then finds it isn't what she wanted, after all."

  There was silence.

  "I've never known her choose this type of holiday, before," he said reflectively.

  "Haven't you?" Alix was genuinely surprised. "I thought it was just the sort of thing that pleased her."

  Moerling shook his head.

  "No. It's all too — artificial somehow. I know she can play a part as we
ll as anyone. But there's nothing really artificial about her when she is off duty."

  "Why do you think she chose to come here, then? It wasn't to please us, surely?"

  Again Moerling smiled slightly.

  "Oh no, it wasn't to please us. I have an idea," he said thoughtfully, "that it was in the nature of an experiment."

  "An experiment?"

  "Yes. It's just sufficiently like our London or New York or Paris life for her to see what happens when we allow ourselves a little latitude. She knows that both you and I shall relax slightly in the holiday atmosphere, and she wants to see whether it is all too dangerous — this new relationship of ours. If it is—"

  "What?" Mix said sharply.

  "I don't know, my dear. But I think that is what she is trying to work out to herself."

  Alix felt profoundly disturbed. She wondered if it would be better to curtail these outings. She wondered if they showed their affection for each other too openly. She wondered if they would begin to cause scandal. All the old worries crowded back on her. And then she told herself again that they all imagined too much, that people who lived in the public eye were apt to grow fanciful about these things.

  When they reached home, Varoni was lying in a long cane chair on the veranda, reading. She was in white, with a blue scarf tied round her fair hair, and she certainly looked young enough to be anyone's sister.

  Moerling went to garage the car, and Alix ran up the steps of the veranda.

  "Hello, Nina."

  Varoni put down her book and smiled.

  "Had a good time?"

  "Yes, thank you. Lovely."

  An elderly American woman, sitting near, glanced at Varoni and said pleasantly:

  "What very good friends you and your daughter are. You know, I rather like the way modern children call their parents by their Christian names."

  Alix froze where she stood. Obviously the woman had no idea who Varoni was, and had no intention of being: spiteful or unkind. She merely stated what she thought. And before Varoni could correct her with the lie that somehow didn't come so glibly as usual, she made matters worse by adding:

  "I've noticed that she's equally good friends with her father. She's an excellent mixture of you both to look at — with his dark eyes and your fair hair. It's charming."

  Alix smiled at the woman with sheer nervousness, waiting and waiting for Varoni's icy denial. But it never came. There had been something good-temperedly final about what had been said. It obviously never entered the American's head for a moment that they were anything but a charming father, mother and daughter.

  At last Varoni said rather coldly:

  "Alix is a very pretty child — and she's a good child too. You had better come on in, my dear. We haven't much time to change."

  Silently they went into the hotel together, and up to their suite. Alix wished hopelessly that she could say something trivial and ordinary, but nothing came. Only when they reached their sitting-room did she find her tongue, and then it was to say quite crudely:

  "Nina, why didn't you say something?"

  "Say what?" Her mother's voice still sounded cold. "Deny that you were the image of both of us? How could I? It's true. You are. When we're only with people who know us, it doesn't matter much. They think because I'm Varoni it isn't possible, and so they dismiss the idea almost before it comes. But to anyone like that woman, it's obvious. Eyen I can't lie in the face of such bland assurance," she added bitterly.

  "But if you had only said something, Nina. She may start speaking of me here as your — daughter." Alix broke off as she saw her mother's expression.

  It was very miserable and ironical, she thought, that all the time they had elaborately and rather foolishly guarded against any scandalous interpretation of the facts. And now what had really come out was simply the plain and regrettable truth!

  "I'm sorry," Alix said unhappily, and then thought that was really rather silly. Perhaps Varoni thought so too, because she merely said curtly:

  "It wasn't your fault. You'd better go and get dressed."

  At dinner, if Moerling noticed they were both silent, he made no comment, and during the next few days Alix never quite plucked up her courage to tell him what had happened.

  Towards the end of that week he had to go to Paris for a few days on some matter of business, but Varoni said she preferred not to take a couple of long journeys if they were not necessary, and she and Alix remained on the Riviera.

  It seemed to Alix that everything had smoothed over again fairly satisfactorily by now, and, because she was hopeful by nature, she dared to think that nothing further would be heard about the unfortunate incident with the

  American. Perhaps now, there would be a gradual lessening of Varoni's restless fear that she might be engulfed by that part of her life which she wished somehow to ignore.

  All the same, Alix felt glad when the day came for Moerling's return. In some queer way, Varoni was something of a responsibility when one was with her all on one's own. He was not expected until the early evening, it was true, but that was near enough, and when Alix came into their suite some time in the afternoon, it was without a thought of a crisis in her mind.

  Then she stopped dead just inside the doorway.

  Her mother, with her hat and coat on, was in the act of closing a suitcase, and she looked up at Alix with unmistakable defiance in her eyes.

  For a second there was an electric silence. Then Alix spoke quite gently.

  "Nina, what are you doing?"

  "I thought you had gone swimming," Varoni said almost harshly.

  "I decided not to, after all." Alix still spoke quietly. "But you haven't answered me. Where are you going?'*

  For a moment Varoni's blue eyes dropped, but her mouth hardened unbelievably.

  "Fm going away," she said slowly. "I'm going away, and I'm not coming back. I've left a letter for Moerling, so you won't have the task of telling him. I'm — sick of it all. I don't want this wife-and-mother role. Anyone can do that sort of thing. But I—" she looked defiantly at Alix — "I am Varoni, and I am not going to have that fact swamped in a sea of family feeling."

  Alix didn't move. She just said steadily:

  "Wouldn't it be a better solution if / went away? You could have everything then as it used to be."

  But Varoni shool^ her head.

  "It wouldn't be the same. Moerling has changed too. In a way I've outgrown the Moerling period of my life. We've been too long together."

  Alix wondered incredulously why she couldn't see the pathetic absurdity of that remark.

  "You know it will absolutely break his heart, don't you?"

  Varoni did flinch a little at that, but she said almost at once:

  "He must get over it. Other men have got over that sort of thing. He has his work which he adores — and he has you now."

  "Neither his work nor I count in the least beside you," Alix reminded her with ruthless humility, but Varoni remained silent.

  "Nina, where are you going?*' Alix felt she must have some sort of answer to that question, or she could never face Moerling at all.

  "I'm going on that Scandinavian and Russian tour. I really accepted it quite a while ago."

  "But, Nina! You never hinted at it. He thinks you're fulfilling all your American engagements."

  "I wrote and cancelled them at the last minute." Nina spoke stonily, and Alix felt aghast at the completeness of her determination.

  "Does Prescott know?"

  "No. I shall wire her to meet me in Stockholm."

  "I think Moerling will follow you there," Alix said.

  "No. It will be too late. He can't cancel his American engagements at this date. He's due to fly over next week."

  There was a knock on the door and a servant came in.

  "Is the luggage ready, Madame?"

  She nodded and he gathered it up, while Alix stood there dumb. One couldn't argue and plead in front of a hotel servant — but then one couldn't let Varoni go like thi
s.

  "Do you think you'll be happy with — Prescott, instead . of with us?" she asked in a very low voice.

  Varoni didn't answer that. She only said:

  "It's no good, Alix. It isn't anything I can argue. I've got to go."

  The servant had gone now, and Alix and her mother stood alone there, facing each other.

  "I've left a note in Moerling's room." Varoni didn't look at Alix as she said that, but Alix's little gesture of dismay was not unnoticed.

  "Will nothing I can say make any difference?" Alix stared miserably at the floor.

  "Nothing, Alix. I'm not going to say good-bye, and I'm not going to kiss you."

  "Why? Are you angry with me in some way because I've caused all this?" J

  "No, I'm not angry. I just — couldn't, that's all."

  "You mean—" Alix looked up quickly — "it would hurt too much?**

  Varoni didn't answer, and, in a sudden last flicker of desperate hope, Alix stretched out her hand to take hold of her. But Varoni put her firmly aside, and, without another word, went out of the room.

  Alix thought at first that she must follow her — must make her see the ridiculous and tragic mistake she was making. But what was the good? Everything that could be said had been said. One couldn't pursue her to the very door of the hotel reiterating the arguments which had already broken against her ruthless determination.

  With a little groan of despair, Alix sank down in the chair by the bed.

  She was still sitting there a couple of hours later when Moerling came in, holding in his hand the letter which Nina had left for him.

  Alix gave a cry of dismay and sprang to her feet.

  She had never intended for one moment that Moerling should find that letter while he was entirely unprepared. But in her leaden despair she had not noticed the passing of time, and she saw now that there was very little left to be said in explanation.

  He was very pale — much paler than she had ever known him, and there were slight, tired lines round his eyes that she had never seen there before.